Facebook plans to give each employee a bonus of $1,000 to support them and make their stay at home during the COVID-19 quarantine easier.
Facebook CEO Zuckerberg announced internally that all 45K employees are getting $1,000 in cash and will earn at least their full bonuses for their six-month review. It’s the boldest step yet by a large co. to offset the financial impact of coronavirus. https://t.co/HwBuW0IIj8
— Alex Heath (@alexeheath) March 17, 2020
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the news to all employees in an internal memo yesterday. He also said that these bonuses would be distributed during April.
The company has 45,000 employees, and everyone will receive an "exceeds" rating for their first six-month review of 2020. This can lead to big bonuses that can be used to further help employees during the pandemic, as an average compensation for a Facebook employee is $228,651.
Some of Facebook's full-time employees have taken over part of the work that contractors did to keep these contractors at home. Despite this, Facebook still pays contractors who stay at home. The company will also pay its hourly employees even if they cannot work and must be at home because of the new coronavirus.
Facebook urged its employees in Seattle and Bay Area to work from home if they can to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Facebook isn't the first tech company to offer a cash bonus to support remote employees. E-commerce platform Shopify gave each worker $1,000 to let them purchase equipment necessary to work from home during the coronavirus pandemic.
Management software company Workday also offered its employees two weeks-worth of pay to cover "unforeseen costs."
Zuckerberg not only cares about his employees but also about other people. He is also planning on providing $20 million in donations to support the global relief effort of COVID-19 and creating a $100 million grant program to help small businesses affected by the virus.
